BOOK WEEK is here! It's a time to celebrate our favourite books and immerse ourselves in the joy of reading. The CBCA winning books have been announced and children all over the country are getting their Book Week costumes organised. Teacher's are planning their lessons - and with the help of Teach Starter, I've found some fantastic resources you might like to check out.

This is a sponsored post as part of my Brand Ambassadorship with Teach Starter.

Let's start by discussing the theme - Escape to Everywhere...

A very imaginative theme, as we explore how books allow us to escape into another world. Kicking off this collection of resources with a classroom banner - giving students a starting point for their thinking about the theme. Will they escape to outer space or into a fairy tale castle? A great story writing prompt or story book investigation.

Hi everyone!
I'm back again this week with another Science Week post. Our theme in Year 2 is "Water Wise" for this term and so the perfect Science Week experiment for us was the rain cloud in a jar. I've done this with Miss M before, but it's great for all ages. The shaving cream represents the cloud, the food colouring is the rain - and when the cloud gets heavy, the rain falls down. It really is mesmerising.

I know it's not just me who thinks sensory play is the best thing ever! Lots of you do as well and so my guest blogger today has organised some fantastic baby and toddler sensory play ideas into each category. Meet Katie from Sensory Sensations.

My name is Katie and I run ‘Sensory Sensations’, a sensory and messy play business based in Kent which offers classes, parties and events to 0-5 year olds. I’m a former primary school teacher (having recently left after 10 years of teaching to ‘do mess’ full time) and I have two young daughters (Daisy, aged 4, Indie aged 2). I’ve been running ‘Sensory Sensations’ for 2.5 years and have loved every messy minute! I try and incorporate as many activities as I can that stimulate all the children’s senses, for both babies and toddlers.

If you google ‘sensory play’ there are thousands and thousands of activities you could try with your child and it’s a little overwhelming… so what I’ve done here is give an example of an activity for a baby and a toddler for your child’s senses - sight, taste, touch and smell to get you started!

It's Science Week, hooray! Term 3 is always a busy one for us with lots of things happening but Science Week is one of my favourites - especially since it's the speciality subject I've been teaching this year in my part time role. You may remember this post I wrote recently on an introduction to STEM, and I wanted to share more of the fantastic activity kits you can get via a subscription with STEM Nest for all different ages.

I'm a big fan of monthly subscription packs for kids, and I've been lucky enough to review a few of them on the blog (I'm actually planning a round up post of all of them!). But this month I actually got to contribute to one! Roxanne from Inspire Book Box contacted me to see if I'd be interested in partnering with her business to come up with a book inspired art + craft activity to be included with the July book boxes. I have always said that a child can never have too many books - so I thought this subscription program was a fantastic idea! This month's theme was friendship and the key text was "Oliver and Patch" by Claire Freedman. So I got my thinking cap on and got to work...

Is it just me or did Father's Day sneak up on anyone else? It's about 3 weeks away, but if you're planning on getting anything online (especially if it's something personalised) you better hop to it! Which is why I'm smashing out this blog post tonight to get it out there to you all so you have enough time to get your orders in to some of these brilliant small businesses!

Hi everyone! How are you at organisation? I always thought I was pretty good at it - but with two kids, working part time and just the general chaos and busyness of life it's not always easy to keep your household running like clockwork. Today, guest blogger Erin (you may have read my interview recently) has some fantastic organisational tips to keep the household running like clockwork, ultimately leaving you with more time to actually play with your kids!

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...so if you are anything like me, you are always on the hunt for fresh ideas to keeping the home, routines, family as organised as possible. Today I am sharing eight ways to help keep your family organised so you have more time for play. These ideas are nothing new, we didn't create them (other than our version of #8), these are ideas that we have seen and/or adopted from various experiences and influences. Some we have changed to meet our needs and others we have simply followed in the original form. By using these systems, we have found there is more opportunity for family adventures and PLAY!